eXistenZ (1999)

A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.

Director:

David Cronenberg

Writer:

David Cronenberg

Stars:

Jude Law, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ian Holm

3 wins & 13 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jennifer Jason Leigh	...	Allegra Geller
Jude Law	...	Ted Pikul
Ian Holm	...	Kiri Vinokur
Willem Dafoe	...	Gas
Don McKellar	...	Yevgeny Nourish
Callum Keith Rennie	...	Hugo Carlaw
Christopher Eccleston	...	Seminar Leader
Sarah Polley	...	Merle
Robert A. Silverman	...	D'Arcy Nader
Oscar Hsu	...	Chinese Waiter
Kris Lemche	...	Noel Dichter
Vik Sahay	...	Male Assistant
Kirsten Johnson	...	Female Assistant
James Kirchner	...	Landry
Balázs Koós	...	Male Volunteer

Storyline

Allegra Geller, the leading game designer in the world, is testing her new virtual reality game, eXistenZ with a focus group. As they begin, she is attacked by a fanatic assassin employing a bizarre organic gun. She flees with a young marketing trainee, Ted Pikul, who is suddenly assigned as her bodyguard. Unfortunately, her pod, an organic gaming device that contains the only copy of the eXistenZ game program, is damaged. To inspect it, she talks Ted into accepting a gameport in his own body so he can play the game with her. The events leading up to this, and the resulting game lead the pair on a strange adventure where reality and their actions are impossible to determine from either their own or the game's perspective.

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Plot Keywords:

game | alternate reality | game designer | body horror | parallel world | 

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Taglines:

Into your body, under your skin, beyond your senses

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Genres:

Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong sci-fi violence and gore, and for language

Details

Country:

UK France Canada

Language:

English

Release Date:

23 April 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

Existenz

Filming Locations:

Rockwood Conservation Area, Ontario, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$15,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$810,262, 25 April 1999

Gross USA:

$2,856,712

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$2,856,712

Company Credits

Production Co:

Dimension Films, Alliance Atlantis Communications, Canadian Television Fund

Technical Specs

Runtime:

97 min 115 min (workprint)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Despite the fact that this was filmed in the standard spherical format, "Filmed in Panavision" is listed in the end credits.

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Goofs

The first time we see Ted Pikul at the trout farm, he labels an envelope with the letters LA. The L is clearly connected to the A. However in the next shot with the envelope on the conveyor belt the L and A are no longer connected.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Seminar Leader: eXistenZ. Written like this. One word. Small 'E', capital 'X', capital 'Z'. 'eXistenZ'. It's new, it's from Antenna Research, and it's here... right now.

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Connections

Featured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Underrated Films of the 1990s (2016)

User Reviews

Over-hyped

I was attracted to this movie by the line "Makes the Matrix look like child's play" on the promotional flyer. What a misrepresentation. Matrix is a vastly superior movie to ExistenZ. In fact ExistenZ is simply a very ordinary movie, which looks like it was made on a shoestring budget.

I have really enjoyed a few Cronenberg movies such as Scanners and Videodrome, but this was not even close to being as good as those movies. In fact there was clearly a great deal of influence from another awful Cronenberg movie, The Naked Lunch, in this movie.

Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh are both excellent actors, but they seemed lost in this movie, wandering around trying to work out what to do next. There are other heavyweights such as Ian Holm and William Dafoe whose roles are must have been intended to be caricatures.

The scenes which depict the civil war are some of the least convincing and low budget efforts I have ever seen in a movie boasting such a good cast.

Watch this one with your expectations set very low and, who knows, you may be pleasantly surprised!